Meal prices will go up next year in Wake schools

School meals in the Wake County system will rise another $0.25 next year — the third year in a row the school board has voted to increase meal prices.

The school board voted Tuesday to raise the meal prices after a lengthy discussion, 5-3. Board members were divided over ensuring the financial solvency of the school meal program and keeping families from paying even more to feed their children.

Board members Chris Heagarty, Lindsay Mahaffey, Sam Hershey, Wing Ng and Toshiba Rice voted for the price increase. Board members Lynn Edmonds, Monika Johnson-Hostler and Cheryl Caulfield voted against it.

"At the end of the day, families are going to take a hit," Johnson-Hostler said.

During board member comments, Edmonds said the state General Assembly could fund universal meals for all students with its budget surplus rather than “school vouchers for the wealthy.” Her sentiment echoed what many community groups have also been pushing for but has so far only passed in a few states: free school meals for all students, regardless of income.

Prices would rise from $3.25 to $3.50 and from $1.50 to $1.75 for elementary school lunch and breakfast, respectively. They would increase from $3.50 to $3.75 and $1.75 to $2.00 for middle and high school lunches and breakfasts, respectively.

For a 177-day school year, that would cost a family $44.25 more for lunch in a school year per child. It would cost $88.50 per child if the family buys breakfast and lunch.

The expected revenue from raising breakfast and lunch prices is $1.1 million.

About 2,600 students pay for breakfast, and about 14,000 students pay for lunch each school day. About 61,600 Wake students are enrolled in the free or reduced-price lunch program. Nonprofits estimate thousands more families statewide are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch don't apply for it.

Board Member Toshiba Rice urged DeLucca to find more ways to reach families who qualify but who haven't applied.

Families sometimes don't know or remember to apply, but many don't apply because they don't want to take the funds, Superintendent Robert Taylor said. It's a matter of "dignity" to them.

"The last thing I want to do is raise prices off families and students because I know how difficult that is," Taylor said. "But we have these raises because the cost of business goes up."

The federal government provides free and reduced-price meals for lower-income students and students at some schools with high percentages of lower-income students. The General Assembly has covered the remaining cost of the reduced-price meals for qualifying students for the past couple of school years.

School system leaders cited the rising costs of goods, packaging, supplies and employee benefits as reasons they needed to raise meal prices. One of its vendors is raising delivery fees by $400,000 next year, district Senior Director of Child Nutrition Services Paula DeLucca said Tuesday. The district is "fast approaching a deficit," she told the board.

School nutrition services departments are financed separately from other school operations; they are funded entirely by their revenues and can’t run a deficit. While some grants can help them, generally other funds cannot be transferred to them to help them break even. That means funding comes from the price of meals — paid meals and the federal reimbursement rates for free and reduced-price meals.

The school board, along with several others in North Carolina, raised lunch prices two years ago by the same amount, amid a more volatile supply chain. The board raised prices again last year by the same amount, along with a few other school boards.

Few school boards have so far discussed raising meal prices for next year, according to school board agendas.

Earlier this month, DeLucca said if the board didn't raise prices, the district could look for cheaper food and supplies, cut staff or use leftover money intended for a rainy day. The district does plan to use $2.7 million in leftover federal grant money next year.

Rainy day funds should be used in emergencies, said Heagarty, the board's chairman. The board shouldn't plan to use them as a part of regular budgeting, he said. Currently, the school meal program's rainy day funds are below two months of operating costs.

"That’s a horrible, horrible position for this district to be in," Heagarty said, imploring fellow board members to vote to "remain solvent."

Edmonds said operating budget funds could be appropriated to cover the meal program, if needed and if other adjustments didn't work out.

While the school board is asking county commissioners for $63.2 million more for the system's budget next year, the board didn't include additional funding to cover expected cost increases for school meals. It doesn't have a line item in its operating budget to cover the school meal program, which operates like an independent enterprise.

Last year, to avoid bigger price increases, DeLucca said, the district cut staff and made oversight of some operations regional instead of at the school level. That meant a loss of cashiers and other school-level employees. That also meant an increase in time spent in lunch lines for some students, DeLucca said.

"It is a struggle to decide whether to burden the families with the cost or burden the students with having less," Board Member Cheryl Caulfield said, noting the possibility that meal quality would worsen without a price increase.

"It’s a very difficult decision," DeLucca agreed. "It’s pretty much forced choice."